Alison McGovern: Well, the hon. Lady should listen up, because if she thinks redistribution is important, then she should be aware that in the new seats that the Conservatives won at the election in December, there are half a million jobs at risk. If the Conservatives think that they can turn away from this issue as those people end up on the scrapheap, then they are very much mistaken.
We have heard London Tory MPs saying, “London is the powerhouse of the country—make sure London is all right and everyone else will be okay.” Again, I thought that the Conservative party was not about that any more; I thought that the Conservatives had mended their ways. Well, let us see: are they really going to vote to ignore those half a million jobs in the seats they won only in December? I would say to the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire: beware headline statistics, because the employment rate, as he well knows, cannot describe the situation for places that went through wave after wave of deindustrialisation, and where the previous rounds of high levels of unemployment impact today on people’s skill levels, income and ability to mobilise capital in those places.
My greatest fear right now is for young people, because the labour market has memories. When the labour market has a negative shock like this that impacts on people who are working today and experiencing it, they will feel that shock for the rest of their career. According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, employees aged 25 and under are about two and half times as likely to work in a sector that is now shut down as other employees. Those young people will live with this shock for the rest of their career. I say to the Minister: those young people in our country today will never, ever forget what this Government did. The Federation of Small Businesses has said that kick-start is disappointing and we need much better for young people.
Finally, on rebalancing, what should that really look like? Where I am from in Merseyside, devolution has been worth it for us and it is going well. Merseyside’s chief economist, Aileen Jones, has come up with a credible recovery plan that ought to be supported by the Government. Whether it is innovation or the new digital economy, we can do it. We just need the Tories to do what they said they would.

Saqib Bhatti: I absolutely agree and I am proud of the Government for putting ideology aside, but there is a reason that we are the only party that the British public entrusted with our economy. Therein lies the difference, because while we talk about sustainable public finances, Labour would like to see the people of this country reliant on the state forever with no end date, trying to sneak in socialism through the back door. Meanwhile, this Government are trying to work really hard to protect, support and create new jobs. If the Labour party wants to support businesses and protect jobs, they should support this Government and this Chancellor. This is the Chancellor who introduced the job retention bonus scheme so employers could bring back people from furlough. He introduced the £2 billion kick-starter scheme to get young people into six months of paid employment, with £2,000 for employers for each new apprentice under 25 and £1,500 for those over 25. He doubled the number of work coaches and invested £150 million in the flexible support fund to remove barriers to work.
Our furlough scheme was unprecedented. It went further than any country in the world and it was the right thing to do.

Karin Smyth: In my time in this place, I have repeatedly highlighted the attainment gap for young people in Bristol South. The covid crisis makes it much worse, which is why it is urgent that the Secretary of State makes a decision about exams and what will happen next year to allow planning to close that gap. I congratulate all schools, leaders and City of Bristol college in Bristol South for their heroic efforts over the summer to get our kids back to school fully and make things as covid-safe as possible. I have been very impressed with the work they have done, and also with the collaborative way in which Bristol City Council has worked with them.
However, everyone is completely and utterly dismayed at the Government’s late and unhelpful guidance during this crisis. As one of the chairs in Bristol South said to me, “The DFE guidance still comes in fits and starts, often lacking in clarity and sometimes seeming to ignore the practical issue real schools face in interpreting and implementing the guidance.” In the spirit of being helpful, I am keen to help my own children and the children of Bristol South and, indeed, the country. Education is about outcomes and preparing for life. No set of school leavers needs that more than these young people, so let us help. Let us think big. Let us get ambitious for these young people.
First, let us start co-ordinating the guidance. Do not send it every day or every week, but make clear what has changed since last time. Put it through a computer with track changes on. That will make a massive difference for young leaders. Secondly, can we have some clarity on how we use Ofsted in the next year or so? What will be the nature of its visits to schools? Can the approach now be reviewed to look at the balance between support and challenge? We need to get Ofsted helpfully assisting with school improvement and safeguarding, rather than doing last-minute, high-stakes accountability inspections, which are unnecessarily adding to school leaders’ workloads.
The third area is FE transition apprenticeships, which are the key to young people’s opportunities in Bristol South. I am a strong supporter and a chair of the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships, but the pandemic has wreaked havoc on the ability of employers to support apprenticeships. As was discussed in the Education Committee yesterday, what is needed for FE is a national plan for colleges and sixth forms. There can be no one-size-fits-all approach. We need  an end to these piecemeal, headline-grabbing policy announcements.
Those are my suggestions for the Government. They need to take note of what we have learnt this year to help with next year and going forward, and they will have a lot of co-operation from many Members in this House in doing so.